Some years ago, I was contacted by
a chap I knew. We'll call him 'Brian', largely because that was his name
and it makes things easier to remember. Brian and someone we'll call 'Ray'
for similar reasons, had come into one of those huge proscenium-arch dart-scoring
engines. I use the word 'engine' to conjure up visions of some steampunk
monstrosity that was all cogs and sharp bits that would take your fingers
off if you looked at it funny. This vision would be very close to the truth.

Anyway. This dart-scoring-engine was currently
lodging in an unheated shed (it was, of course, winter) at the back of
a dodgy industrial estate on the south side of Cheltenham. Unsurprisingly
it was semi-broken and Brian & Ray wanted to know if I could fix it.
If I could, there'd be a shiny new sixpence in it for me. Or at least a
share of the 16k that Ray was going to sell it for next week.

I went to look at the thing. It was a mess of LEDs,
drivers, badly-soldered ribbon cable and was entirely driven by 74xx logic.
You indicated the score by plugging shorted-out 3.5mm jacks into a miniature
dartboard located in a podium and then pressing the 'go' button.

Being stupid (and poor at the time. Must have been
my year out of work to be a student), I said I'd have a crack at the job.

So, let's see: Ugly conditions (I took up smoking
again just to keep warm), near-impossible job (no diagrams, two dozen PCBs
nailed to the back of the woodwork and chained together with ribbon cable)
and a bastard deadline (next week).

Of course I got the bugger working.

And that was the last I saw of Brian.

Two months later, I'm in some random pub and Ray
walks in with a half-dozen big chaps in dark suits. He asks me if Brian
ever 'saw me right'. I tell him not, so he heaves this huge roll of cash
out of his pocket and peels twenty quid off it. And that was the last I
saw of him.

This, then, is the story of my working life. Impossible
jobs, bad conditions, mad deadlines... And a shiny new sixpence of my very
own at the end of it...

Once again some wilfully obtuse gibbering and bad
design presents itself where you'd maybe expected a photo of a gurning
drunkard and a list of stuff. Well, can't say I'm sorry not to live down
to your expectations. On the other hand, this all fits firmly into the
'seemed like a good idea after a lot of lager' sickbucket.

There's little in the way of personal data here because,
well, either you know it already or you're some complete stranger who might
consider minding its own business. I'm also arrogant enough not to care
what a bunch of webby-webby, point&drool scum might think.